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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">January 9-11,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Three Simple
Proposals <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Oakland's Not for Burning?
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By GEORGE
CICCARIELLO-MAHER <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>Oakland.<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">I</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n 1968, Amory Bradford penned a volume
entitled <i>Oakland’s Not For Burning</i>, documenting the tinderbox that
the city had become, and the lamenting the inevitability with which it
would explode. But the assertion contained in the book’s title was hardly
credible,
<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E3D6173EF935A3575AC0A96E958260">
coming as it</a> was from a Yale-educated former Wall Street lawyer and
<i>New York Times </i>general manager whose only business in Oakland came
via the U.S. Commerce Department. Some forty years later, in the early
hours of this year of ostensible hope, the reality of the persistence of
racism in Oakland became devastatingly clear, sparking a powerful
response the likes of which this city hasn’t seen in years. But luckily,
the condescending voices of moderation, like that of Bradford a
generation prior, seem have little traction with those who have seen
enough police murder.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>A New Year’s
Execution<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>After responding to reports of “a
fight” on a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train, BART police detained the
train at the Fruitvale station, forcibly removing several young men from
the train as dozens of bystanders watched. Several of the men, all young
and mostly black, were lined up, seated, along the platform. Some were
cuffed, Oscar Grant was not. As he was attempting to defuse the
situation, BART police decided to detain him, placing him face-down on
the platform, with one officer kneeling near his neck, and another
straddling his legs. For some still unexplained reason, one officer, now
identified as Johannes Mehserle stood up, pulled his gun, and fired a
shot directly into Oscar Grant’s back. <br><br>
The bullet went through Grant’s back, ricocheting off the platform and
puncturing his lung. There are gasps from the bystanders and shock on the
face of the other officers, who clearly didn’t expect the shot to be
fired. Grant, who was begging not to be Tasered at the time of the shot,
clearly didn’t expect it either. But this surprise notwithstanding, the
decision was then made to cuff the young man as he lay dying. As an added
precaution, BART police then sought immediately to confiscate all
videophones held by the train passengers, in an effort to cover up the
murder. Luckily for everyone but the BART P.D. and Mehserle, several
videos managed to make it into the public domain, where they went viral
and were viewed on Youtube hundreds of thousands of times in the
following days. In a rare show of journalistic integrity, local Fox
affiliate KTVU
<a href="http://www.ktvu.com/video/18409133/index.html">aired one of the
videos in its entirety</a>.<br><br>
The standard protocol---deny, distort, cover-up---had clearly been
disrupted, and BART spokesman Linton Johnson even went so far as to
criticize the leaking of the video,
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNOV154P0R.DTL">
arguing that</a> rather than clarifying events, public access to the
video would “taint” the investigation. BART was on a back foot, and
popular anger was on the offensive. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>A Corporate Police
Force<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>BART Police are a notoriously
problematic organization, existing in a gray area between public and
private, funded by taxpayers but operating under a corporate structure
which lacks all accountability and oversight.
<a href="http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7813&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15">
According to the
</a>
<a href="http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7813&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15">
<i>San Francisco Bay Guardian</a></i>:<br><br>
The structure of the BART police force is a recipe for disaster. BART’s
general manager (who is not an elected official and has no expertise in
law enforcement) hires the BART police chief… There is no police
commission, no police review board, not even a committee of the elected
BART board designated to handle complaints against and issues with the
BART police… There is, in other words, no civilian oversight.<br><br>
And this “disaster” has been more than merely hypothetical: in 1992, a
BART cop shot unarmed Jerrold Hall in the back of the head with a shotgun
as he walked away, <i>after </i>firing a warning shot. In 2001, BART
police shot a mentally ill man who was unarmed and naked. And
<a href="http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7814&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15">
according to Tim Redmond, writing in the same paper</a>, “BART made a
monumental effort to cover [the Hall slaying] up,” and in the end,
“Nothing happened… BART called the shooting justified.” As of yesterday,
BART hadn’t yet interviewed the officer, Johannes Mehserle, who insisted
on invoking Fifth Amendment rights not to speak. And just when they claim
to have compelled him to do so, he abruptly resigned, thereby ending any
internal affairs investigation that may have taken place. There still
remains, according to BART, a criminal investigation, but if the past is
any indicator, this won’t get far. <br><br>
But let’s not fool ourselves. Even publicly-run organizations like the
Oakland Police Department, which has all the ties in the world to elected
power, operates with an informal shoot-to-kill policy for black
teenagers. This was as clear in the
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/maher09242007.html">2007 murder of
Gary King</a> as it is with Oscar Grant today. And since the district
attorney responsible for bringing charges against the police works
closely with these same police on a daily basis and in a shared
enterprise of delivering convictions, we should not be surprised that
<i>not a single police murder in recent years has even seen disciplinary
action.</i> “No one
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/06/BAVT154HIG.DTL&tsp=1">
we talked with</a>,” writes the <i>Chronicle</i>, “from the district
attorney's office to lawyers who work either side of police shootings -
could remember a case in the last 20 years in which an on-duty officer
had been charged in a fatal shooting in Alameda County.” <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>Does It Matter What
Really Happened?<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>We have all seen the video, and
rumors are swirling about how to interpret its contents. The officer
clearly fires a fatal shot into Oscar Grant’s back while the latter is
face-down on the floor. A flurry of “experts” have intervened to give
their analysis. While such expert testimony usually functions to justify
the police, even among these experts some are shocked and disgusted by
what they see. One expert, after concluding that the gun had accidentally
gone off, watched video from another angle, after which he
<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNOV154P0R.DTL">
changed his conclusion</a>: “Looking at it, I hate to say this, it looks
like an execution to me.”<br><br>
Others are insisting that Mehserle meant to pull out his (less fatal)
Taser, but this theory has since been discredited. Firstly, a Sig-Sauer
handgun weighs three times what a Taser weighs, and the shape is
completely distinct, and another expert noticed in the tape that the
officer had <i>previously </i>withdrawn his Taser, located for safety
reasons on the <i>other side </i>of his belt. In other words, he knew he
was going for the gun. Hence the claim of accidental discharge, but this
too raises a serious question of plausibility: when Mehserle drew his
gun, Grant couldn’t see it, and so there could be no claim that it was
meant to threaten the victim into passivity. In the end, if Mehserle is
ever forced to give a statement, he will likely turn to the
tried-and-true excuse that he “suspected” Grant had a gun in his
pants.<br><br>
But none of this matters, all the debate of the officer’s “intention”
only serves to reinforce the fact that, while white cops are allowed to
have intention, this is a quantity denied to their victims. This fact of
racist double-standards is not lost on those who, realizing that there
will be no “justice” in this case, have taken to the streets to
demonstrate their rage at the unprovoked execution. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>“I’m Feeling Pretty
Violent Right About Now”<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>While friends and family were
gathered for Grant’s funeral, a number of organizations called a
demonstration where he was killed, at Fruitvale BART station. Circulating
by internet and Facebook, the call reached many thousands, and in the end
some 500-600 protestors and mourners came together to
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J4ccdP3Bs8">make speeches and
lament this murder</a>. At a makeshift memorial behind the BART station,
candles are burning, and
<a href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2009/01/08/justice_for_oscar_grant_007.jpg">
hand-written messages appear</a>: “Oscar, we watched you grow up from a
lil’ boy down the street into a man,” and “O., RIP, peaceful journey, God
only pick da best.” <br><br>
As an indication of the contrasting sentiments that divided the crowd,
where someone had scribbled “Fuck the police,” another had covered the
expletive with another message: “Forgive.” But forgiveness wasn’t on the
minds of many. Several of the more radical protestors climbed onto the
BART turnstiles, displaying a red, black, and green flag. One shouted:
<br><br>
I’ve got the mentality of my parents who were Black Panthers, I’m tired
of talking, I’m thinking like L.A. in 1992. Y’all can have your megaphone
speeches, I been through that, I’m black, I don’t need more
speeches. Let’s take a stand today, because tomorrow ain’t
promised!<br><br>
While some on the mic attempted to soothe the crowd, insisting that
burning up the city was “too easy” and “useless,” the message didn’t seem
to resonate much with the crowd. And why should it? We were standing in
the middle of “Fruitvale Village,” a corporate paradise in the middle of
a historically Latino district, which clearly doesn’t belong to the local
residents. It was clear where the momentum was going, as the biggest
cheers went up for the more radical voices who seized the mic: “I’m
feelin pretty violent right now,” one insisted, “I’m on some Malcolm X
shit: by any means necessary. If I don’t see some action, I’ma cause a
ruckus myself.”<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>Oakland
Burning<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>While some remained to hear
additional speakers, including hyphy hip-hopper Mistah FAB and the
recently-founded Coalition Against Police Executions (CAPE), several
hundred
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0mLrRL0LA&feature=related">
set out on a militant and rapidly-moving march</a> north on International
Boulevard. The police response was initially hands-off, despite the tenor
of the chants: “No Justice, No Peace: Fuck the Police,” and “La Migra, La
Policia: La Misma Porqueria.” If those in the passing cars and stuck in
traffic were of any indication, the local population knew exactly what
was going on, why we were protesting, and were largely sympathetic.
<br><br>
As the march wound around Lake Merritt, it turned sharply to the left, a
shortcut to BART headquarters. This seems to have thrown off the police,
who were clearly unprepared for what came next. A single police car,
parked sideways at 8th and Madison to prevent access to the BART
headquarters, became the target of the crowd’s increasing fury. Sensing
the tone of the crowd, a cop reached in and grabbed her helmet before
scurrying away. Within moments,
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DzqfE-LDzM">the police car was
destroyed and nearly flipped over</a>, and a nearby dumpster was burning.
<br><br>
A few seconds later, the air was thick with teargas. Evidently, seeing
their own property destroyed was too much for the police to stomach.
(Note: there is no truth to
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/08/BART.shooting/index.html">
the CNN report</a> that tear gas was deployed to protect a surrounded
officer). I get a noseful of teargas, and a protestor near me is shot in
the stomach with a rubber bullet, and needs to be helped off, as the
crowd quickly sprints north toward downtown. Passing through Chinatown,
dumpsters full of fresh produce are emptied into the street to slow the
march of a line of riot police. When the crowd reaches Broadway, there is
momentary confusion, with some continuing straight to Old Oakland, some
pushing left toward Jack London Square, and others urging a move
rightward toward the city center. <br><br>
The police took advantage of this momentary indecision, with a full line
charge that send many of the furious demonstrators sprinting and left
many arrested. When the crowd regrouped, it was promptly encircled at
14th and Broadway, and a standoff ensued. Either by design or by a
predictable quirk of the police organization, nearly every riot cop in
the street was white, some sneering defiantly. And if the crowd of
demonstrators was largely multiethnic, it was clear by this point that
the functional vanguard was composed largely of the young, black
teenagers most acutely aware of their relationship to the police. There
were chants of “We are all Oscar Grant!” and several protestors lay in
the middle of the street with their hands behind their backs, mimicking
the position in which Grant was executed.<br><br>
Some small fires were set, and the police moved in again, pushing the
crowd down 14th toward Lake Merritt. The spearhead of the demonstrators
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5361rUgc-Fg&feature=related">
rushed forward</a> to shouts of “We the police today!” smashing and
torching vehicles, and while this was done out of anger it was far from
irrational, as the press will certainly present it. Rather, it was the
result of a very clear line of reasoning that goes something like this:
we have to do something, and in the face of police impunity, this is all
we can do. Nothing would be more irrational than a blind faith that the
police will do the right thing, given all the historical evidence to the
contrary. While the press is doing its best to find bystanders to decry
the “vandalism” involved, it couldn’t ignore the testimony <i>Oakland
Post </i>reporter Ken Epstein, who was writing an article on the killing
when he looked out his office window to see his Honda CRV in flames: “I’m
sorry my car was burned,”
<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11401338?source=most_viewed">
Epstein admitted</a>, “but the issue is very upsetting.”<br><br>
The crisp wintry air swirled and the lights twinkled along the surface of
Lake Merritt as demonstrators demolished a local McDonalds, at which
point a line had clearly been crossed: a police armored personnel carrier
came tearing down the street at 45 miles per hour, firing rubber bullets
and sending the crowd scattering. The scene was surreal, with padded riot
cops leaping off the vehicle in an effort to win an impossible footrace
with younger and fitter demonstrators.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>Dellums Steps In,
Steps Out<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>From the early moments of the
demonstration, the position of the mayor, Ron Dellums, was at issue. Here
was a mayor with a great deal of popular respect, with longstanding civil
rights credentials, but who had done little to slow the pace of police
killing, among the other ongoing ills plaguing postindustrial Oakland.
With tear gas swirling and the APCs circling, the mayor decided to make
his appearance at around 9pm, walking the few blocks from City Hall down
to 14th and Jackson to
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WFxAVlKQ44&feature=channel">
address the angry crowd himself</a>. Several times he attempted to scurry
away under hard questions that he could not answer, with the standard
responses: we should all take it down a notch; there will be an
investigation. <br><br>
I don’t remember what it was exactly that I yelled at the mayor, but it
certainly got to him. As he was leaving the crowd, he turned and walked
directly up to me, putting his face a mere inches from my own. <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Dellums: What I want people to do now is calm down. I’ve told the
police to stand down, and I hope you all can do the same. Both sides need
to be peaceful right now so we can find out exactly what
happened.<br><br>
<dd>Me: But we know what happened! We’ve all seen the video: A cop pulled
his gun and shot an unarmed black man in the back. And you know there are
reasons that certain people have guns pulled on them and others don’t.
<br><br>
<dd>Dellums: There are two processes currently underway…<br><br>
<dd>Me: The process is if I shoot someone, I’m arrested. But if a cop
shoots someone, he gets put on paid administrative leave until everyone
forgets about it.<br><br>
<dd>Dellums: I’m asking both sides to be peaceful…<br><br>
<dd>Me: Both sides? I haven’t killed anybody, this crowd hasn’t killed
anybody. The police have</i> killed somebody, and you’re in charge of the
police! Who runs this city? When will the prisoners be released?<br><br>
<dd>Dellums: Soon…<br><br>
</dl>Dellums then returned to City Hall, surveying the damage. But as he
entered, the angry crowd
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAAUje6CTzQ">booed
thunderously</a>. And despite his claim that the police had been ordered
to stand down,
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINg49yFPSw">clashes broke out
immediately</a> on the same block, more fires broke out, and more teargas
was deployed. The mayor’s intervention could do little to calm Oakland’s
frazzled nerves. His claim that the people have lost faith in the police
rings empty for people who never had such faith in the first place,
people who have seen vicious police murder after police murder without so
much as an indictment. <br><br>
The demonstrators continued to express their pent-up rage, engaging in
running battles until nearly 11pm, when a mass arrest seems to have
quelled the resistance for the moment. All in all, official numbers show
105 arrests (including 21 juveniles), more than 80 of which occurred
after </i>Dellums claims to have told OPD to stand down. Who knows if his
promise of a speedy release means anything at all.
<a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/08/18559980.php">
Support and solidarity demonstrations</a> are scheduled this week for the
prisoners’ arraignments, and with another mass mobilization scheduled for
next Wednesday, this is far from over.<br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Intention as
Privilege<br><br>
</b></font>As I have said, and at the risk of controversy I will repeat:
it doesn’t matter if Mehserle meant to pull the trigger. He had already
assumed the role of sole arbiter over the life or death of Oscar Grant.
He had already decided that Grant, by virtue of his skin color and
appearance, was worth less than other citizens. And rather than
acquitting the officer, all of the psychological analyses and possible
explanations of the shooting that have been trotted-out in the press, and
all the discussion of the irrelevant elements of Grant’s criminal
history, have only proven</i> this fundamental point. <br><br>
If a young black or Latino male pulls a gun and someone winds up dead,
intention is never the issue</i>, and first-degree murder charges are on
the agenda, as well as likely murder charges for anyone of the wrong
color standing nearby. If we reverse the current situation, and the gun
is in Oscar Grant’s hand, then racist voices would be squealing for the
death penalty regardless of intention. And yet when it’s a cop pulling
the trigger, all the media and public opinion resources are deployed to
justify, understand, and empathize with this unconscionable act. One side
is automatically condemned; the other automatically excused.<br><br>
For now, the fires are out. But despite the soothing words of Barack
Obama and Ron Dellums, there is no lack of fuel and no lack of spark in
Oakland. <br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">George
Ciccariello-Maher</font> is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at UC
Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, and can be reached at
gjcm(at)berkeley.edu. <br><br>
<br><br>
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